29 BC – Octavian holds the first of three consecutive triumphs in Rome to celebrate the victory over the Dalmatian tribes.
523 – John I becomes the new Pope after the death of Pope Hormisdas.
554 – Emperor Justinian I rewards Liberius for his long and distinguished service in the Pragmatic Sanction, granting him extensive estates in Italy.
582 – Maurice becomes Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire.
900 – Count Reginar I of Hainault rises against Zwentibold of Lotharingia and slays him near present-day Susteren.
1516 – The Treaty of Noyon between France and Spain is signed. Francis I of France recognizes Charles’s claim to Naples, and Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, recognizes Francis’s claim to Milan.
1521 – After an extended siege, forces led by Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés capture Tlatoani Cuauhtémoc and conquer the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan.
1532 – Union of Brittany and France: The Duchy of Brittany is absorbed into the Kingdom of France.
1536 – Buddhist monks from Kyoto, Japan’s Enryaku-ji temple set fire to 21 Nichiren temples throughout in what will be known as the Tenbun Hokke Disturbance. (Traditional Japanese date: July 27, 1536).
1553 – Michael Servetus is arrested by John Calvin in Geneva, Switzerland as a heretic.
1624 – The French king Louis XIII appoints Cardinal Richelieu as prime minister
1704 – War of the Spanish Succession: Battle of Blenheim: English and Imperial forces are victorious over French and Bavarian troops.
1779 – American Revolutionary War: The Royal Navy defeats the Penobscot Expedition with the most significant loss of United States naval forces prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor.
1792 – King Louis XVI of France is formally arrested by the National Tribunal, and declared an enemy of the people.
1806 – Battle of Mišar during the Serbian Revolution begins. The battle will end two days later, with a decisive Serbian victory over the Ottomans.
1814 – The Convention of London, a treaty between the United Kingdom and the United Provinces, is signed in London, England.
1831 – Nat Turner witnesses a solar eclipse which caused the sky to appear a blue-green color, which he envisioned as a black man’s hand reaching over the sun. Eight days later he and 70 other slaves kill between 55-65 whites in Southampton County, Virginia.
1868 – The 8.5–9.0 Mw Arica earthquake struck southern Peru with a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme), causing 25,000+ deaths and a destructive basin wide tsunami that affected Hawaii and New Zealand.
1876 – The premiere of Der Ring des Nibelungen at the recently completed Bayreuth Festspielhaus.
1898 – Spanish–American War: Spanish and American forces engage in a mock battle for Manila, after which the Spanish commander surrendered in order to keep the city out of Filipino rebel hands.
1898 – Carl Gustav Witt discovers 433 Eros, the first near-Earth asteroid to be found.
1905 – Norwegians vote to end the union with Sweden.
1906 – The all black infantrymen of the U.S. Army’s 25th Infantry Regiment are accused of killing a white bartender and wounding a white police officer in Brownsville, Texas, despite exculpatory evidence; all are later dishonorably discharged. (Their records were later restored to reflect honorable discharges but there were no financial settlements.)
1913 – Otto Witte, an acrobat, is purportedly crowned King of Albania.
1913 – First production in the UK of stainless steel by Harry Brearley.
1918 – Women enlist in the United States Marine Corps for the first time. Opha May Johnson is the first woman to enlist.
1918 – Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW) established as a public company in Germany.
1920 – Polish–Soviet War: The Battle of Warsaw begins and will last till August 25. The Red Army is defeated.
1937 – The Battle of Shanghai begins.
1942 – Major General Eugene Reybold of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers authorizes the construction of facilities that would house the “Development of Substitute Materials” project, better known as the Manhattan Project.
1944 – World War II: German troops begin the pillage and razing of Anogeia in Crete that would continue until September 5.
1954 – Radio Pakistan broadcasts the “Qaumī Tarāna”, the national anthem of Pakistan for the first time.
1960 – The Central African Republic declares independence from France.
1961 – East Germany closes the border between the eastern and western sectors of Berlin to thwart its inhabitants’ attempts to escape to the West.
1964 – Peter Allen and Gwynne Evans are hanged for the Murder of John Alan West becoming the last people executed in the United Kingdom.
1968 – Alexandros Panagoulis attempts to assassinate the Greek dictator Colonel Georgios Papadopoulos in Varkiza, Athens.
1969 – The Apollo 11 astronauts are released from a three-week quarantine to enjoy a ticker tape parade in New York City That evening, at a state dinner in Los Angeles, they are awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by U.S. President Richard Nixon.
1977 – Members of the British National Front (NF) clash with anti-NF demonstrators in Lewisham, London, resulting in 214 arrests and at least 111 injuries.
1978 – One hundred fifty Palestinians in Beirut are killed in a terrorist attack during the second phase of the Lebanese Civil War.
2004 – Hurricane Charley, a Category 4 storm, strikes Punta Gorda, Florida, and devastates the surrounding area.
2004 – One hundred fifty-six Congolese Tutsi refugees are massacred at the Gatumba refugee camp in Burundi.
2008 – South Ossetian War: Russian units occupy the Georgian city of Gori.
2015 – At least 76 people are killed and 212 others are wounded in a truck bombing in Baghdad, Iraq.